PRO BASKETBALL

PRO BASKETBALL; Nets Make Casey's Wait Worth It

By CHRIS BROUSSARD

Published: June 29, 1999

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., June 28—
For the past seven weeks, Don Casey had more sources than perhaps any sports reporter in America. As one of the most well-liked people in the National Basketball Association, Casey had general managers, coaches, players, agents and broadcasters telephoning him with the latest Nets news they heard.

With all sorts of different information entering his ears, Casey labored through the Phil Jackson watch, wondered privately about the speculation surrounding Mike Fratello and Jeff Van Gundy and continually ordered himself not to worry. Despite the anguish, Casey always answered the phone.

''We had many fights over that portable phone coming wherever we went,'' said Dwynne, Casey's wife of 35 years. ''Many fights! Finally, we were in a restaurant one night, and the phone kept ringing and I said to him, 'If you answer one more call, I'm out of here because this is no way to have dinner.' ''

The Caseys were at their favorite restaurant in Hoboken last Friday, and the phone rang. But this time, Dwynne did not mind. Casey, the Nets' interim coach last season, had been given the job on a permanent basis. The club made the announcement today at a news conference at the Champion Center, and Casey will sign a three-year deal worth approximately $4 million on Tuesday.

''He's really happy,'' Dwynne said. ''He really wanted it. The fact that he had such a good rapport with the players made it really exciting.''

While today was mostly joyous within the Nets organization, the team has been criticized both inside and outside the league for its handling of Casey's hiring. The main contentions are with the deal Casey was given and the time at which it was announced.

Only the first year of Casey's deal is guaranteed, which gives him little more than a one-year tryout. He will be paid $1.1 million for next season, which makes him one of the lowest-paid coaches in the league. If he survives the length of the contract, he will receive $1.3 million for the second year and $1.5 million for the third, plus additional money for reaching certain incentives.

The Nets also drew reproach when the initial announcement was made on Friday, the day the San Antonio Spurs played the Knicks in Game 5 of the N.B.A. finals and one day after Van Gundy said he would remain as coach of the Knicks. Moreover, none of the club's principal owners -- Lewis Katz, Finn Wentworth and Ray Chambers -- were at today's news conference.

But Casey, who since joining the league as an assistant in 1982 has never made more than the $365,000 the Nets paid him last season, said he is content.

''It's more money than I've ever made in my life and ever thought I'd make in my life for a one-year period and potentially more,'' said Casey, whose only N.B.A. head coaching experience came in 1989 on an interim basis with the Los Angeles Clippers. ''If you don't have six championship rings, I don't think you have commanding presence, so you should be happy with what you have. And I am.''

While the Nets' ownership pursued Jackson, who rejected their multiyear offer of approximately $7 million a year in favor of the Los Angeles Lakers', most of the team's players wanted Casey all along. Among the team's stars, only Stephon Marbury voiced a preference for Jackson, but he also said he would love to play for Casey again. So it was no surprise that Marbury, Kendall Gill and Keith Van Horn were all smiles at today's news conference.

The Nets players say their fondness and respect for Casey stems from his humorous personality and lack of ego. In an age when coaches are often celebrities in their own right and sometimes vie for the spotlight with their players, the Nets find it refreshing that Casey does not take himself too seriously.

''He does not have any ego at all, which is great because there's so many egos on the floor anyway,'' Gill said. ''I guess he's a lot like Van Gundy as far as how his players love to play for him. Case just wants to coach and make players better and make the atmosphere better. And that's what he did last year.

''And the other reason why I respect Casey so much is that if you do something wrong, he'll yell at you and get on you. It's not like it's a cakewalk, but when he yells, you know he's genuine. He's not doing it for show.''

Gill has often referred to Casey as a father figure and, as an example, told of an incident last season when he was struggling through the worst slump of his career. He had asked Casey to take him out of the starting lineup so he could better evaluate his play. That night Casey called him on the phone to make sure everything was all right.

''He called me up at 3 o'clock in the morning and stayed on the phone with me until 4:30,'' said Gill, a 10-year veteran. ''We weren't even talking about basketball. We talked about other things. I've never had a coach in the pros do that to me, and that shows you that he's not only concerned about the basketball player, he's concerned about you as an individual.''

While the Nets conducted their coaching search, coaches and officials throughout the league pulled for Casey to receive the job. As the vice president of the coaches association, he gained the respect of his peers by working tirelessly for a better pension plan. And he pushed the league to start flying former coaches to the annual pre-draft camp in Chicago so they could network with general managers and coaches who might be looking for assistants. ''He's opened up doors for a lot of people in this league,'' John Nash, the Nets' general manager, said.

Now the door has finally been opened for him.

Photo: Stephon Marbury congratulating the Nets' ''new'' coach, Don Casey, who had held the job on an interim basis. (Dith Pran/The New York Times)